Global Courant 2023-05-12 12:16:09
Veterans salute during a military parade marking the 78th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory in the Great Patriotic War in St. Petersburg, Russia, on May 9, 2023Irina Motina/Xinhua via Getty Images
Russia is building a village for American expatriates tired of liberal ideology, a lawyer told state media.
The project has been approved and is expected to house some 200 US and Canadian families, he said.
Russia has in recent years tried to position itself as a bastion of “traditional” moral values.
Russia is launching an idea to build a village for hundreds of American and Canadian families seeking to escape the cultural climate in North America.
The village, which will be built in Moscow’s suburbs in 2024, is intended for conservative families who “want to emigrate for ideological reasons,” immigration lawyer Timur Beslangurov said Thursday. according to RIA Novosti.
About 200 families have expressed interest in the project, Beslangurov said in a speech at a legal forum in St. Petersburg, the state gazette reported.
Many of these families have no Russian roots, but are tired of “imprinting radical values” in the US and Canada, Beslangurov said.
“Today they have 70 genera, it is not known what will happen next,” he added, per RIA Novosti. The same rhetoric has often been used by Russia’s Vladimir Putin as US-Russia relations deteriorated in recent years. In December 2021 he has compared gender deviations to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most of the expatriates who want to move to the village are Catholic and “strongly believed in the prophecy that Russia will remain the only Christian country in the world,” Belangurov said.
The village project has been given the green light by the authorities and the new settlers will pay for the construction, Belangurov added, according to state media.
Insider was unable to independently verify Beslangurov’s claims. The lawyer and the Russian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment sent outside of regular business hours.
Putin has in recent years tried to portray Russia as a country that stands for “traditional” moral, social and religious values.
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He signed a decree in September which warned of a “struggle for cultural supremacy” on the world stage and warned of “the aggressive imposition of neoliberal attitudes by a number of states”.
It said Russia was in a “unique position” to defend and propagate conservative views, which the decree called “traditional Russian moral and religious values”.
The village project also comes as Moscow’s war on Ukraine and the ensuing international sanctions have tarnished Russia’s reputation among tourists and expatriates. Travel agencies reported this in February business drops below pre-pandemic levels since the invasion began.
However, the Federal Security Service claimed on May 3 that more foreigners are entering the country this year. The influx of foreign citizens to Russia increased by 17.6% in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022, it said.
People from China and Central Asian countries, such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, contributed to the largest increase in travel to Russia, the state agency said.
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